Video Review #3

Here is the third boardgame video review. This time I'm taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting a game that I bought when I lived in the Czech Republic—Vladimír Chvátil's Arena published by Altar in 1997.

Island of Wak-Wak #3—Arena from TS S. Fulk on Vimeo.

Here's a quick look at Vladimír Chvátil's first game.

Modular Terraformation Tiles

Hell Dorado has some very interesting terraformation rules for setting of the terrain before the game begins in earnest. You divide the 30" x 30" table into nine 10" squares and bid on which squares you wish to terraform. The player with the highest bid for a given 10" square gets to spend terrain points on some terrain feature (a well, rain of frogs, crevasse, lava, etc.).

Game maniacs were selling 1' x 1' EPS boards (actually it was 30 cm x 30 cm) that were 70 mm thick. So I ordered 9 of them. A foot is close enough to 10" in my book (plus, that extra length helps my Westerns against Marek's Lost, hehehe). I didn't realize how thick 70 mm was until I saw them, however.

So now I've been sawing the boards in half, which will eventually give me 18 double-sided modular playing boards. I'm making one set a typical desert/underground setting with one side blank and the other featuring a river. The other set is going to be more hellish, with a black basalt on one side and a river of lava on the other.

To make the modular rivers work, I marked off 2 cm in the middle of the sides the river would flow to. Then I drew the river and cut it out with a knife.

It's taking a long time, but I hope to have one set read by the time the rule book is released.

Here are pics of the work in progress.

Hey, That's on My Mac!

I recently saw Hey, That's My Fish in the boardgame category of the Mac AppStore. That was an instant buy.

I've thought about buying this game before for the kids but never pulled the trigger. Being able to get the game for only 38 SEK and having the computer deal with set up and tear down was the clincher.

We've played this game over and over and the kids love it. Since the computer highlights your moves, Saga is able to easily play this game too, at the tender age of 4.

Here's hoping that FFG releases more of their simpler games to the Mac AppStore. There are also iOS and Android version (no Windows, that I know of--haha!).

Hell Dorado Cipher vs. Asmodée

A couple of weeks ago I received my first recruitment packs for Hell Dorado made by the American company Cipher Studios (of Anima Tactics fame). Marek was very disappointed when he opened the less than spectacular packaging and looked at the card (Cipher left, Asmodée right). First they have a generic picture for all the Damned of Wraith (why “Damned One”?). Second they printed on much cheaper card stock than Asmodée’s cards are and the new ones have pointed corners instead of rounded ones! Grr.

You can take or leave the new graphic design, but I hate the cheap feel of these cards. I don’t understand why Cipher didn’t choose to make cards similar in quality to the French ones.

Then when I finally opened a pack to put together a model, I was very disappointed with the quality of the casting. I have never seen a mold line on a French Hell Dorado figure, but there was a good amount on several of the American models. The only flash I filed on Asmodée’s figures were on some weapon blade and from the spruce. Cipher’s required extensive filing.

Another disappointment was that I was missing a body piece. I’ve read on Cipher’s forums that Cipher has good customer service. We’ll see if they’ll ship a tiny body part to Sweden for free or not. I’ll report later.

Asmodée Editions had an elegant product that was the epitome of good design and quality production. So far Cipher is not measuring up. I hope that will change.

Video Review #2

Island of Wak-Wak #2—Battletech from TS S. Fuik on Vimeo.

Marek and I give our thoughts on the 25th Anniversary Introductory Box Set for Battletech.

Video Review #1

I've started using Vimeo (longer videos allowed) to host video game reviews. Here is the first one: Yggdrasil.

Island of Wak-Wak #1 from TS S. Fuik on Vimeo.

Oops!

I just found out the other day, via a forum post, that we’ve been playing Claustrophobia wrong. We were playing correctly that you roll all your combat dice at one target; however, we forgot the line that says to treat all troglodytes on the same tile as one target.

No wonder Marek always whamped on me.

Anyway, here is a WIP of a conversion of a Damned of Wrath (Hell Dorado) into a Demon of Destruction (Claustrophobia) and a brief video of my daughter and I opening Claustrophobia.